


The Center of the World

by our_black_heart



Series: Circles [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sorry Not Sorry, digusting amounts of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/our_black_heart/pseuds/our_black_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky often deals with depersonalization. It can happen anywhere at any time, but this time it happens in the middle of the night in his bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Center of the World

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not one hundred percent sure that I like this, but I really hope that you do. Also the title is actually taken from a Bright Eyes song called The Center of the World, you should definitely give it a listen.

Bucky wakes up to a deep and lingering moment of depersonalization. He sees pitch black and he doesn’t exactly remember where he is or how he got there, but he knows he can’t move. He wants too, but he can’t. He vaguely remembers a woman telling him that sometimes things like this happened. She told him that sometimes he would lose touch with himself, that’d he’d forgot some things and that it would cause him anxiety. She even stressed that it might cause a slight paralysis if his body became tense enough or filled with enough stress. The realization instantly makes his body languid. He can move again and that allows him to finally breathe again. He turns his body over to the other side and then he sees flesh, a stark contrast to the darkness of the room. Pale skin against nothingness, broad shoulders and a scatter of tiny freckles, a strong back and then the memories rush back like a meteor breaking through the atmosphere: fast and then on fire all at once. 

“Steve” he whispers, a scared and tiny whisper into a room as dark as an abyss. Bucky pulls the blanket over his shoulders and just bellow his lips. The mound of muscles that he spoke to doesn’t even flinch. Steve has always been a heavy sleeper.

Bucky is scared; the depersonalization has left him with a feeling of dread and in dire need of human contact. More so than usual. He purses his lips and then shuts his eyes as tight as he can. The little stars that dance across his lids are red and then yellow, pressure building up, he assumes. 

“Steve” this time a little louder and he’s added a soft kick in order to insure that the other party would startle. And he was so right about it, because when it came down to it, any subtle movement in Steve’s general vicinity would startle him awake. He was still a soldier for all that it was worth. 

Steve turns around to face him, his eyes are closed but Bucky can tell that he’s consciously awake. 

“Buck, what’s wrong?” He says it all in one long breath, a tired edge to his voice and his eyes still closed. His skin glowing like the moon and Bucky remembers the times he felt he needed to pray for Steve’s well being. He’d look up to the sky and the stars and beg whatever deity was listening for help, he’d ask them to keep Steve healthy and he’d selfishly ask them to allow him to keep Steve. Now he’s face to loving face with Steve, he’s healthy and fortunately enough Bucky gets to keep him. Steve’s eyes flutter, one of them stays closed while the other stutters and then simultaneously both are wide open. 

“Buck?” Steve asks again, this time more concerned and alert than the previous. Bucky can’t help it, for the love of all that is good in this world, he can’t help it. He couldn’t help it if his own life depended on it, because anytime Steve’s awake and he’s fussing over Bucky, Bucky will laugh about it. And he does, one single airy chuckle and a widespread grin that he feels the need to smother against his pillow. As soon as he looks up again, he sees Steve’s softened expression. Sedated at best, but soft all together. 

“Did you have a bad dream?” Steve’s still whispering as if being too loud would wake the rest of the world and if he did that he'd have to share Bucky with it, he'd have to share his Bucky time with it.

“No…I just wanted to see your big dumb face. Can you believe that?” Steve inhales and then promptly exhales, silently laughing. “I forgot who I was for a second is all, but as soon as I saw you, freckles like constellations on your back, I knew who I was and where I was and I knew that it was what I wanted to be doing.” Steve’s brows pull together, he’s a worrier that Steve. 

“Yeah?” And Bucky knows, he loathes that Steve still has to ask. Steve is still Steve and sometimes Bucky forgets that he’s still a little insecure. 

“Yeah, pal. Wouldn’t have come back if this wasn’t where I wanted to be.” It’s quiet for a little bit, the both of them are really tired and Steve is looking at Bucky like he’s really happy and really grateful and breathing is the only thing Bucky momentarily knows how to do that will save his heart from bursting with the stupid amount of love that he sees in Steve’s eyes. 

“You know, the therapist said that forgetting was common and that it was going to happen often. She said that we just have to find a way to deal with it and you know what…?”

“What?” Bucky punctuates that by putting his hands on Steve's face, just to touch and make sure that he's real. Sometimes Steve is too pretty to be real, Bucky tells him so. Steve just rolls his eyes because Bucky is a sweet talker and it’s not like he wasn’t before. Steve’s used to it. 

“I like that this is the way that we deal with it.” Steve extends his arms out to grab Bucky and Bucky allows himself to be dragged into Steve’s embrace, because he allows himself things that he wants now. They wrap themselves around each other and disregard the world around them, because this is their time and they’re allowed to be selfish about it

Bucky breathes in Steve’s chest. It’s warm in their little huddle of muscle and Steve’s skin is covered by a thin layer of sweat, it smells like a feisty, short, kid with hot blood and a hard head. It smells like a short temper and a righteousness too big for the body that it was in, it smelled like a trust built up from too many years of having to rescue the hero that was too stupid to ask for help, but too fiery to be complacent. As a kid he knew that scent by heart, he’d slept with little Steve Rogers during summer nights too many times to ignore. Now-a-days it was the only thing that made him feel like a kid again, feel safe and optimistic and like maybe if he begged enough his parent’s would take him and Steve to look at the stars, his father used to tell him about the constellations and he was forever grateful, because he learned how to describe Steve’s body using different words. 

Steve’s body was a planet, surrounded by constellations and as pale as the moon, it was unconquerable and full of water and life, nutrients and wonder. Steve was Bucky’s home, and no matter how far he wandered away from it, the gravity of Steve would always be too strong to fight against. It’d always pull him in and Bucky was too weak.

“Buck stop staring at my freckles, y’know I hate them.”

“Well, it’s better than staring at your big ol’ open mouth, pal.” 

Steve scowls into Bucky’s hair and Bucky places a single kiss onto Steve’s chest right over his heart, Bucky still thinks Steve's heart is too big for the body that it's in.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think. I think I want to make this into a series in which we get to see the many different stages of depersonalization that Bucky deals with, in the many different places and situations that he faces it in.


End file.
